Unsubstantiated talk of the forest department purportedly planning to cut down 50 trees on Rajpur Road elicited concern from citizens on the social media on Tuesday. The talk gained weight as one tree had been chopped at the site.
Informing about this, Dehradun based activist, Lokesh Ohri said that a tree was recently cut down by a contractor on Rajpur Road and when he was asked about it, the contractor told everyone present there that the tree was hollow and could fall anytime.
According to Ohri, the contractor also said that there are 50 more trees which will be cut down in Rajpur soon. However, when contacted by this correspondent, the Dehradun divisional forest officer (DFO) Rajiv Dhiman said that the department is not planning to cut down 50 trees in the Rajpur Road area.
He said that recently a survey was done and on the basis of that, only those trees will be cut down which are now dry and hollow and can possibly fall over anytime causing serious damage to life and property.
There are only six such trees in the Rajpur Road area that will be axed, added Dhiman. "There is no proposal sent to the department by anyone regarding these trees and there is no other concrete reason to cut down 50 trees in Rajpur, so it is irrelevant to assume that we are planning any such thing," said the DFO.
He said that the only reason some trees will be cut down in the area is due to public safety. However, Ohri said that the forest department cuts the trees citing several reasons but hardly plants any sapling in the place of the old trees.
He said that it is mostly activists and some nature loving people who plant the saplings in the place of old trees in public places.